


Breathe

by merriman



Category: Emelan - Pierce
Genre: Backstory, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-24
Updated: 2009-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-05 06:11:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/38593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merriman/pseuds/merriman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Novice Niva meets a young dancer at Urda's House in the Mire.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breathe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wickedwords](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wickedwords/gifts).



> While Rosethorn's pre-Dedicate name was revealed in Briar's Book, I couldn't find any mention of Lark's pre-Dedicate name, so I kept it close and hope it isn't too jarring.
> 
> I would have written them in their teens, but since Lark didn't discover her magic until she was much older, I couldn't quite manage to write them together that early.

The gardens at Winding Circle were in full bloom, but for once, Niva wasn't weeding. The weeding was being tended by the Air Temple novices and dedicates and she had the day to go into the city. Not that it was a day free from duty and obligations. The trips into the city were almost more work than a day in the gardens, what with all of the things that needed doing at Urda's House. There would be medicines to refresh and restock, patients to be treated and new trainees to try her patience.

The wagon they'd taken into the city was loaded full of supplies, but Niva knew it wouldn't be nearly enough. Urda's House treated all of the poorest and did so on donations and charity. It was never enough. But she did her part to make what they had go further than it would have otherwise. Fatheaded snobs like Isas probably thought the people in the Mire deserved to live like this, with no medical care or aid.

When the wagon stopped behind Urda's House, Niva was one of the first to jump out and start hauling in basket after basket of supplies. In the front room she could hear the sounds of sick people waiting to be seen. One of them had a particularly nasty sounding cough. Every time Niva came back in she could hear whoever had it hacking and wheezing and gasping for breath. Finally, when she was sure she'd carried in more than everyone else combined, she stopped and stalked out into the front room.

~~*~~

Lara had put off coming to Urda's House as long as she could. The coughing came and went in a pattern she was only just beginning to be able to predict and she'd hoped to be able to find a way to control it herself. But she'd finally swallowed her pride after a scare in the marketplace where two of her fellow acrobats had needed to carry her off to a bench so she could catch her breath after their performance. They'd been kind enough to give her a full share of the day's takings, but she couldn't ask that of them again. Not when she wasn't dancing or tumbling like they were.

Looking around the waiting room, she couldn't help but think that so many others there had it worse than she did. A young boy seated on the floor nearby was missing several fingers and wore a large bandage on his mangled hand. His mother sat above him, a baby in her arms. The baby seemed healthy enough, but the mother looked exhausted and worn to the bone. Across the room was a man who couldn't stop shivering, though the room itself seemed rather warm. The healers in the house had seen him once already and assured everyone that he wasn't catching, that the shivering had nothing to do with a fever, but with a long ago illness that had affected his movements.

One by one, the patients in the room were called and taken into the back to be seen. The boy and his mother and the baby were called, though Lara knew she'd come in before them. Everyone in the room could hear when the healers took the bandage off and the boy struggled to hold back his tears.

A coughing fit came over Lara as the shivering man was ushered into the back with the help of one of the nurses. It was a bad one, starting off hard and continuing until she was sure she would faint from lack of air. Someone brought her a cup of water, but she could barely get it down.

~~*~~

Niva looked around, but the source of the coughing was obvious. A tall woman with short dark hair was doubled over in her seat, coughing so hard it was obvious she wasn't breathing in between. Niva rushed over, already pulling out a vial of syrup from a pouch hanging from the belt of her habit.

"Out of my way," she ordered the young man who'd brought the woman some water. A nice gesture, perhaps, but water wasn't going to help here. Niva was hardly a healer, but she knew the wheezes when she heard them. The woman needed more than water.

"Here." Niva crouched in front of the woman and held up the vial. She'd brewed up the cough syrup herself and gotten high praise for it from her teachers. She couldn't imbue it with any healing magic, but she could make the medicinal ingredients in it more potent. "Try to swallow as much as you can. It should begin to work as soon as it hits your throat."

The woman took the vial but her coughing had her shaking so hard she could barely hold it, so Niva held it for her, tipping it as gently as she could. Just moments after swallowing the first drops, the woman's coughing lessened. A few minutes more and she was breathing again. And still, no healer had come.

"Lazy bubble-heads," Niva muttered, taking a seat next to the woman to keep an eye on her. "You should have been seen right away with a cough like that. Why didn't you say something?"

The woman gave her a smile as pretty as anything Niva had ever seen and she felt a smile form on her own lips before she could stop herself. "There were so many others," the woman told her. "So many more who needed them. My cough can wait."

It was such a foolish thing to say, Niva almost screamed in frustration. "But you could have suffocated! You're seeing the next healer."

No one around them seemed to be willing to argue with Niva. She figured her reputation preceded her now that she'd been coming to Urda's House for a year or so. If she said this woman was seeing the next healer, then that was that.

The woman was still smiling, now with no trace of a cough or a wheeze. "Thank you. Are you one of the healers here, Novice..."

"Niva," she said, shaking her head. "No. I'm a student at Winding Circle. But believe me, I'll be coming back to check on you. What's your name?"

"Lara," the woman said. "But if you ask for Lark, they'll know who I am."

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to A for the superfast Yuletide Madness beta!


End file.
